


By the Beautiful Sea

by Lady_Ganesh



Series: Destruction and Repair [1]
Category: Weiss Kreuz
Genre: Dark, Future Fic, Multi, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-21
Updated: 2009-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 05:37:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nagi sees a familiar face.</p><p>Post-Gluhen, ignoring Side B. Warnings are in <a href="http://rot13.com">Rot13</a>: Punenpgre qrngu, vzcyvrq qhopba, nggrzcgrq abapba (bssfperra). Much love to <a href="http://emungere.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://emungere.livejournal.com/"><b>emungere</b></a> for betaing!</p>
            </blockquote>





	By the Beautiful Sea

Nagi opened his PDA. Still no instructions. He had the distinct impression, at this point, that the client was trying to dick with him, and he didn't appreciate it. _Get in place and we'll send you the file._ This wasn't some fucking John Cusack movie. He liked to know who and what he was dealing with.

The airport was the usual tourist bullshit; flower sellers, grubby kids, grumpy gringos in obnoxious floral shirts and shorts two sizes too small.

_Well, don't you look good enough to eat._

There was something he hadn't expected; Schuldig's voice in his head, sardonic as ever. Nagi smiled in spite of himself. _Where are you?_

_Stupid airport bar. The drinks are watered down. Stupid flight's delayed._There was something off about the mental signal, though Nagi couldn't place what. He was careful walking in.

There was hardly anyone at the bar; a couple who'd clearly been drinking too much too fast and who were now busy squabbling over their travel plans, a skinny woman Nagi immediately pegged as a prostitute, and a drab, older man with greying auburn--

Fuck, _that_ was Schuldig.

Nagi walked over. "What the--"

"He's mad at me," Schuldig said. "Or I'd be prettier. He took me to a movie last week, though. The Batman one. It was good. I'm going to practice the pencil trick." He gestured at the empty bar seat next to him. "Maybe you could come with us. It'd be easier if you stayed." His hair was cropped closely to his skull.

"I don't know," Nagi said. "When did Crawford die?"

"Don't remember." Schuldig's eyes went vague. _"He'd_ know better. Ask him."

"'He'?" Couldn't be a hallucination; Schuldig was too coherent for that. So who--

"Shit," Schuldig said. He pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and shoved them at the bartender. "He's yelling at me. I'm late. We're going to Barbados. Come?"

"I-- maybe," Nagi stuttered, and watched as Schuldig disappeared into the crowd.

"Hey," the bartender said. "What'll you have?"

"Um," Nagi said. "Scotch and soda. Please."

 

Three hours at the bar and still no instructions. Nagi was getting pissed. He snapped his PDA closed, paid his tab-- two drinks that were mostly soda and water, and an order of the worst fries he'd had in years-- and walked out of the bar.

On his way out, he overheard a pretty white girl talking to a cop. "No," she said. "That's not him. His hair was shorter. Like a crew cut." She was small and dark-haired, wearing a blue bathing suit with a floral-print sarong.

"Look, I know what you described, and we just can't find anyone who matches the description," the cop was saying. "We get a lot of tourists. Maybe he's left--"

_"No,"_ the girl insisted. "The bartender said he was local. Worked at some shop on the beach. And he _assaulted_ me, and then he started screaming-- at _me!_ to stop! Like _I_ was the one who was hurting him!"

Nagi stopped dead. He took a breath, thought it over, and walked over to the pair. "Reddish hair?" he asked in his best English. "Going gray?"

"Yes!" The girl almost grabbed his arm in her eagerness. "Where is he? Did you see him?"

"He was in line to get on one of the planes," Nagi said. "Couple hours ago."

"So what are you doing here?" the cop asked suspiciously.

"Was supposed to be meeting someone," he answered, flashing his PDA. "He didn't show. I bumped into the guy on the way into the bar; thought he was an old friend of mine. He wasn't."

"All right," the cop said. "I'll ask the airport desk if they know anything."

"No," she said. "It's all right. As long as he's _gone._ He was _freaky._ His friend said he was sick in the head, but I--" She shuddered.

"His friend?"

"Yeah," she said. "The other guy at the shop. That's what the bartender said, anyway. He was Japanese like you are."

"Oh," Nagi said. "Right."

 

Nagi picked a hotel at random and checked in, then checked his PDA _again._ If they hadn't paid half up front, he'd be gone by now, but accepting the money _did_ imply a certain level of obligation.

He'd give them til morning; then he was _out_ of this rathole.

Just as he put the PDA down on the hotel desk, it beeped. Nagi snorted and picked it up.

After all the wait, the dossier was satisfyingly complete, including several photographs and a complete listing of all the target's known aliases.

Nagi wanted to laugh when he saw the target's last known location.

_Lives at the "Happy Smile" flower shack on the public beach nearest the airport. Is rumored to have taken a partner or lover; male, approx. 175 cm, auburn or red hair, European ancestry._

"You dumb fucks," he said, and put the PDA back down.

 

In the morning, he messaged that the target had apparently left Cancun for destinations unknown. _For an additional fee I will research current location; unless I hear otherwise, I will consider the contract cancelled._

He didn't wait for an answer; he booked a boat to take him to the mainland.

Mamoru had thought he could pacify his grandfather by 'firing' Nagi and falling quietly back into line. But it'd been too late for that; maybe even that old bastard Saijou couldn't have stopped things once the Crashers report moved up the lines of command.

Nagi hadn't even known about it until Mamoru called him from Taiwan, and he'd been moving fast then. Nagi counseled revenge, but Mamoru said he'd had enough of that for a while. Of course, Mamoru had known by then that Rex was dead, and Aya and Ken injured. Nagi wondered idly if either of them were still alive.

It didn't matter.

 

"This place _sucks,"_ Schuldig whined, putting his feet up.

"I'd have a lot more sympathy for you if you weren't the one who sent us running out of Cancun," Mamoru snapped, and thwacked Schuldig's feet with his newspaper. "Move over, I want to sit down."

"Didn't you _see_ her?" Schuldig protested, pulling his feet back in to crouch like a cat. "That _body._ That _hair._ She thought she should be a model. Who was I to tell her otherwise?"

"If you hadn't _also_ told her she was going to look pretty on your living room wall, maybe she wouldn't have overwhelmed you and _we_ wouldn't be here," Mamoru sighed. The bedsprings whined as he sat down. "I'm not asking you to stop being a jerk. I'm just asking you not to mess things up."

"I saw Nagi," Schuldig said, and Mamoru's eyes flew wide open. "Back in Cancun. If he was around, I'd be better."

"When were you going to tell me this?" Mamoru asked sharply.

"I just did," Schuldig said, and Mamoru sighed again.

 

Mamoru woke up hard and aching, with his hand between his legs and Crawford's scent in his nose. Living with a telepath was going to kill him. He moaned a little, and then snapped fully awake as he stared into Nagi's eyes.

"What--" He moved his hands above the sheets. "Nagi-kun?"

"They hired me to kill you," Nagi said, and Mamoru felt the bedsprings groan as he sat down on the side of the bed. "What the hell's wrong with you?"

"He's dreaming," Mamoru said. "It's--"

"You need better shields," Nagi said, stroking the side of his face.

"I don't think I _have_ any shields," Mamoru sighed, leaning forward into him.

"You need them."

_Well, no shit,_ Mamoru thought, and that was the last clear thought he had for a while.

 

Schuldig woke up at some point; Mamoru thought back, a little fondly, to back when he would've cared, or at least been embarrassed. But Schuldig had been so firmly in his mind so many times that now it was merely an annoyance.

"Told you I'd seen him," Schuldig said, as Nagi came hard against his thigh, gasping against Mamoru's shoulder. Mamoru stroked Nagi's sweaty back and glared.

"You could wait," he snapped.

"I could," Schuldig said, sitting up on the bed and grabbing a handful of tissues from the box on the dresser. "I didn't."

Nagi relaxed against Mamoru. "Shields," he repeated.

"Can you teach me?"

Nagi licked his ear thoughtfully. He thought for a moment. "Probably. It's not that hard. You must have some already, or you'd be mad by now."

"It's better with you here," Schuldig interrupted, getting up from his bed. "You remember me better. And you weren't pissed at me all the time back then, like _he_ was." He walked over to Mamoru's bed. He was naked; Nagi could see clearly how much thinner he was, rangy like a starving animal. He got bed in behind Nagi and wrapped his arms around Nagi's waist. "Keep remembering me," he said, putting his chin on top of Nagi's head. "All of it. Please."

Mamoru ignored him. He reached over and grabbed his own handful of tissues, handing half to Nagi and cleaning himself with the other half. "You said you were hired to kill me. If you wanted to, you would've done it already. So."

"So," Nagi said, closing his eyes. "Careful, Schuldig."

"Yeah, yeah," Schuldig muttered blissfully.

"I told you," Nagi continued. "They'd come after you, sooner or later."

"I needed to be away from it," Mamoru said. "I just. How many people could I kill?"

"Not enough," Nagi snapped. His eyes opened. "I don't know what you want me to do. I know what _I_ want you to do, but--"

"I'd like that," Schuldig said, childlike. "I want to be pretty again," Schuldig said. "I could get there. Be useful."

Nagi rolled his eyes. "Your priorities haven't changed, at least."

"People used to look at me like they wanted to fuck me," Schuldig said. "Now I'm something they'd scrape off their shoe. I want to be hot again. I want to _kill_ somebody again without feeling I'm scraping off the top of my own head."

Mamoru sighed. "They'll just send someone else, anyway," he said. "Won't they?"

"I would," Nagi said. "You would."

"I'd do it myself," Schuldig muttered.

"We know," they chorused at him. Schuldig giggled.

Mamoru looked over at the bedside alarm clock. The display read _3:14._ "I'm going back to sleep," he announced. "We'll deal with this in the morning."

 

Nagi woke up first, sandwiched between Mamoru's cool skin and Schuldig's heat. It was sticky. He rubbed his eyes and slowly extracted himself.

The shower was cheap, but the air conditioning was shitty enough that the tepid water came more as a relief, and the thin towel didn't really matter.

He got dressed and walked downstairs, found a market, bought some donuts and fruit. Mamoru was up when he came back, sitting at the tiny little table with his laptop, a towel around his waist, his own skin damp with water from the crappy shower. Nagi had had a plan; come in, make coffee, ask difficult questions. But the coffee was already brewing in the pot, and Mamoru had opened his mouth just a little at the sound of the door.

Nagi reached over; Mamoru's hair was wet, too. His mouth opened further as Nagi moved closer, and they kissed, Nagi's hand grabbing at Mamoru's exposed shoulder. The chair creaked dangerously under their shared weight, so Nagi slipped down and bent between Mamoru's knees instead. Mamoru hissed his name under his breath.

 

He asked the difficult questions later, when they were resting in the bed Nagi thought of as Schuldig's. Schuldig himself was still sleeping in Mamoru's bed, drooling onto the pillow. Mamoru traced Nagi's side, his suntanned hand a few shades darker.

"What happened?"

"He hit me up for change," Mamoru said. "I couldn't leave him. Probably should have. I spent a day and a half early on thinking I was Crawford."

"You're soft," Nagi said.

"Yeah, yeah." Mamoru sighed and shifted his weight so his hip pressed harder against Nagi's. "I know."

"He recognized you?" Nagi's hand traced a line up Mamoru's leg.

Mamoru shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know. Maybe he just picked up that I recognized him. I'll hit you if you tell me I need better shields again."

"We need to do something, though," Nagi said, and turned over on his back. "He's bleeding all over the place. And the people looking for you...."

"You know who hired you?"

"I can guess."

"Yeah," Mamoru said.

"There's a place I can take him." Nagi reached out an arm and Mamoru moved in, put his head on Nagi's shoulder. "Pull him together more."

"You trust them?"

"They're afraid of me," he said. "And they were _terrified_ of Crawford. That'll be enough."

"Will it?"

"Trust me," he said. "And there's a place you can go to toughen up your shields. Another day or two here, and we'll move. Quickly, so they can't track it."

"I was hoping we'd have more time," Mamoru said.

Nagi pressed a kiss to his temple. "We can't wait around. You did that last time, and look where it got us."

Mamoru swallowed and Nagi felt him stiffen. "You told me last time you wouldn't come back."

"You told me they'd leave you alone," Nagi rejoined. "So we were wrong."

"You'll come back this time?"

Nagi just nodded and pulled him closer.

 

"And then you went to the beach and started selling flowers," Nagi said. They were all sitting at the table now, with Schuldig making short work of the last of the donuts.

"You don't need to tell me it was stupid," Mamoru said, watching Schuldig out of the corner of his eye. "I know."

"It was low profile," Nagi said. "That's something. But flowers. Shit. Could you have _been_ more obvious?"

"I know flowers," Mamoru said. "Besides, they already had a hot dog stand."

Schuldig laughed so hard he choked on his donut. Mamoru caught some mental rambling about _frankfurters_ and kicked him under the table.

"There's a coffee shop in Bruges," Nagi said. "You can go there every morning and order something to eat. After a week or so, you'll realize you have a very specific craving. Once you can order something that's _not_ that craving, you can start ordering off the menu. Or not buying anything at all. You'll get stronger fast."

"It's really that easy?"

"The hard stuff will be working with Schuldig," Nagi said wryly. "And don't think fighting the shop owner is as easy as it sounds."

"Will he realize--?"

Nagi nodded. "He does this all the time. He used to belong to Eszett. But...we worked out a deal with him, some time back. He'll find me in your head. He likes being free."

Mamoru caught his eyes. "You're sure."

Nagi smiled. "He's greedy, but he's not stupid. Just make sure he picks up me before he realizes people are trying to kill you. We'll make a contingency plan, but you should be all right."

"He's too much of a coward to try anything," Schuldig said. "You'll be fine."

 

Bruges was pretty, sedate, boring. As Nagi predicted, aside from Claude's sadistic smile on the days he 'won,' things were fine. Mamoru got a small apartment and an accounting job at a local bookstore. His boss was angry, petty-minded, and possibly mad, but his checks cashed, and that was what mattered most. He went to dinner with the day clerk once in a while, and listened as she'd pour her heart out about her latest infatuation and how badly it had gone. He suspected she wanted him to offer to take her away, sweep her off her feet and fly her to Japan, which she clearly saw as an exotic escape from her day-to-day troubles. He offered her tissues instead, and thought idly about sleeping with her when his frustrations got to be too much.

Nagi had said it would take at least three months. Mamoru read books and went to the park, rented some movies, perfected his French through rigorously applied television and started working on Dutch. His tan faded away.

After four months, he called Kritiker.

"Hello," he said, checking Sean's computer setup. "Have you missed me?"

"Mam-- Mr. Takatori. You're--"

"I'm sure Heinrich will be disappointed to find me alive," he said calmly. "Perhaps we shouldn't tell him."

A deep hiss of breath from Sean; Sean's computer opened up the phone tracking.

"I know you've been a bit _frustrated_ with current governance, Mr. Murphy. I think you and I might be able to make a few changes."

"I don't think--"

"Don't worry." He kept his voice light and reassuring. "Kritiker's systems aren't seeing _any_ of this. You don't have to pretend anything."

"Mr. Takatori." Sean sounded angry, but not _that_ angry. "You can't--"

"Of course I can," Mamoru said calmly. "I'll be in touch." He hung up the phone.

He watched Sean Murphy's computer for three hours. Murphy managed to track the signal back to the Dominican Republic, but didn't get any further than that. Satisfyingly, Murphy did _not_ contact anyone else in Kritiker.

He grinned.

 

It was another month before the knock came. He checked the peephole and an intense blue eye looked back at him. He opened the door and stepped back.

"We're back," Schuldig said, grinning. He looked strong, healthy, sharp as Mamoru had once known and hated him. "You're delighted, right?"

Nagi, standing just behind him, rolled his eyes.

"Not really," Mamoru said, but he smiled anyway.

"I'm all better," Schuldig declared, shouldering past Mamoru to dump his suitcases in the room. "We can take over the world now."

"That's good to know," Mamoru said, reaching for Nagi, who kissed him lightly before bringing in his own suitcases. "I've got a plan."

"Even better." Schuldig walked into the bedroom, kicking his shoes off as he went, and lounged dramatically over the bed. "Now come sit on Daddy's lap and tell me all about it."

"You're disgusting," Nagi said, but too removed his shoes and walked to the bed. "We missed you," he said to Mamoru, pulling his jacket off. "Come on."

"I missed you too," Mamoru said. To his surprise, he meant them both.


End file.
